Take 38
'' VeggieTales Promo: Take 38'' is a rare promo made in 1992 made by Phil Vischer. It was made specificaly for Christian video publishing companies in case if they liked it they'd give Phil Vischer the money to make the show. It was released as a special feature on the 2004 Warner Home Video VHS release of Where's God When I'm S-Scared?. Plot The piece starts out with Bob the Tomato in his very first appearance giving what Phil describes as a Martin Luther King Jr.-type "I have a dream" speech about the show all while Larry (voiced here for the very first time by VeggieTales co-creator Mike Nawrocki with a voice eerily similar to Scallion #2, Jerry Gourd, or Jean Claude Pea, more characters that he would voice) is looking for his blue plastic wind-up lobster. The music in the background during his speech is "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" as hummed by Phil and Mike which was originally not a part of the short but added by Phil to show the publishers he was trying to sell the series to that they could handle music. It ends with the first appearances of Archibald Asparagus (at this point simply an unnamed snotty british asparagus that Phil had based off of John Cleese of Monty Python fame) and his wife (who later became Mom Asparagus while Archie would be given another wife rumored to be named Lovey Asparagus). Archibald comments on how he thinks the idea of VeggieTales is absurd as he believes vegetables are only meant to be cooked and not put on television. His wife however mentions that she kinda likes the idea. She also corrects him when he refers to Larry as a pickle instead of a cucumber which later became a running gag in the series that still occasionally pops up. Trivia *This marks the debut of Bob, Archibald, and Junior's mother (portrayed here as Archibald's wife). This also marks Larry's speaking debut. *The canisters in the background which have their spices named on it were reused from the Mr. Cuke's Screen Test animation. It would also be the only other time the spice markings would be on the canisters, because the markings are taken off later when the series' first episode was produced. *Larry sounded like Scallion #2. *Bob had a speedy higher-pitched voice and sounded like Porky Pig. *Archibald sounded like SpongeBob SquarePants. *Mom Asparagus sounded like Lovey Asparagus. *This promo was commercially released for the very first time in 2004 when it was included on the VeggieTales Classic version of Where's God When I'm S-Scared?. But it was only included on the VHS edition. It is unknown why it was not included on the DVD version, although on June 9, 2014 Jon Lopez (known on YouTube as JonMastu Productions) confirmed on deviantART that the promo can't be accessed on any copy of the DVD from 2004 through early 2008 (this version was discontinued in mid-2008 when the 15th anniversary collector's edition was released) making it a VHS exclusive. The 2004 VHS release of Where's God When I'm S-Scared? went out of print in mid-2006 (along with the rest of the VeggieTales shows on VHS due to all shows starting with Larry-Boy and the Bad Apple being DVD only) but it can still be purchased on such sites as Amazon and occasionally shows up on eBay for relativity cheap and acceptable prices, but could be rare to find today. The promo was finally uploaded on May 30, 2014 by Nathan Buede. *According to Phil Vischer's autobiography, before production on Where's God When I'm S-Scared?, he tried to sell the show with this promo to Christian video distributor companies in hopes that he'd get the money to make it, but ultimately failed miserably. Phil managed to get the money from a man at his church who dipped into his retirement funds and gave him $60,000. *The number 38 becomes a recurring gag for later episodes. *In the promo, Bob mentions small kitchen appliances coming together. We never see any talking kitchen appliances in any episode. Originally there was going to be a toaster character (as seen in an early magazine for the show's premiere episode), but the toaster was cancelled because Phil thought that the toaster would be very difficult to animate.